PhD Comprehensive Exam | James Petrie, Targeted non-pharmaceutical interventions and optimal quarantine policy

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Candidate

James Petrie | Applied Mathematics, University of Waterloo

Title

Targeted non-pharmaceutical interventions and optimal quarantine policy

 Abstract

Targeted application of non-pharmaceutical interventions can significantly reduce the cost of controlling infectious disease. I will discuss three projects related to this theme:

(1) A system for privacy-preserving digital contact tracing that enables notification of infection risk in a way that is scalable but does not increase government surveillance.

(2) Estimation of the optimal quarantine risk threshold by considering the tradeoff between quarantine policy and broad social distancing.

(3) Test timing and quarantine duration optimization informed by numerical modeling of conditionality between symptom onset, infectiousness and test sensitivity.